


Wings to Fly

by Tabithian



Series: Blackbird [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Replacement shows up one night, like a stray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wings to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> I am actually a fan of Tim as Hoodlum, and also I really love Tim's Unternet suit, so. *hands*

The Replacement shows up one night, like a stray. He doesn't talk, doesn't do anything but sit on the fire escape attached to Jason's apartment building like an afterthought, hunched in on himself and looking scruffy and tiny and _lost_.

Jason ignores him for the first couple of days. Makes sure to check and double check and triple check his equipment and locks to make sure they haven't been touched, tampered with, and leaves him to his own devices.

It's not until the third day when the skies open up and dumps a shit-ton of rain down on Gotham that he moves. Pale and quiet, a damn ghost, trying to keep out of the worst of it.

Jason doesn't even notice until a few hours after it starts raining. Usually Jason can see him from the kitchen table while he cleans his guns, so he doesn't think much of it. Just figures whatever's been bugging him lost out to common sense and self-preservation. He keeps on thinking that until he gets up to make some coffee and sees Tim pressed up against the wall of the apartment building, arms around himself. The idiot's clearly freezing, and Jason's.

It's not patience, God no. He doesn't have a lot of that left for his 'family', but something in him just snaps at seeing Tim shivering and cold and fucking tiny on his fire escape. Too stupid to get out of the weather, like the goddamned Bat he is.

Jason storms over to the sliding door and pushes it open with enough force to startle the shit out of him. He's got anger going for him and Tim's been curled up so long in the cold and rain that he's slow to react, sluggish. It's easy enough to get close and twist his hand in the front of Tim's shirt to keep him from slipping out of it and getting free.

“Jason, what - “

He growls because Tim's voice is pathetic. A dry croak, and it hits Jason that he hasn't spoken, he's has barely moved from that sad little huddle in all the time he's been there. Taking up space on Jason's fire escape and what?

Brooding? Sulking?

Safe in the knowledge that of all the places anyone would think to look for him, Jason's apartment would be dead last.

“Shut up, Replacement,” Jason snarls, dragging him inside. Through the cluttered kitchen and cramped living room to the bathroom, shoving him into the shower stall. “Strip.”

Tim's been more or less passive up to then, letting Jason manhandle him and offering up token protests. Now though. Now he's less bedraggled stray and more pissed off kitten, tensed and ready to fight.

“What?”

Jason rolls his eyes and points at the shower faucet. “In your dreams, Replacement. You're going to get sick if you don't get out of those, and the last thing I want is for Alfred to come down on me for letting that happen.”

Fuck Batman, Alfred's the real threat and always has been.

Tim's looking at him, that cool assessing expression on his face that always makes Jason angry. Like he's a damn robot and not human, fallible.

Robin 3.0.

Better, faster, all around more perfect than Jason could ever hope to be.

“Look, you want to kill yourself? Fine. Just don't think I'm going to let you get away with that shit on my turf, bringing the rest of our happy little family down on me, okay?” Jason scowls when Tim just stares at him, wariness giving way to confusion. “I've got some clothes you can change into, just. Warm up.”

He turns away then because the way Tim's looking at him fucking hurts, brings up all the worst memories. As though unexpected kindness – no matter how grudgingly offered - is a foreign concept. Another trick, another trap. (Nothing's ever free, you have to pay for it somehow.)

Slamming the bathroom door only helps ease that ache in his own chest a little, and putting his fist through the wall beside it gets things back on a manageable scale.

“That's coming out of your paycheck, Replacement!”

Like any of them actually get paid for what they do, but. It's not like Replacement’s hurting for money, and if it gets down to it Jason’s landlord isn't going to notice a new hole in the walls. It does get him what he thinks could be a laugh, and a few minutes later the pipes groan as the shower starts up.

Jason grabs a clean t-shirt and sweatpants out of the bedroom and leaves them on the bathroom counter along with a towel. Thick and fluffy because Alfred has his ways. He pretends he doesn't notice the way Tim freezes up when he does, painfully vulnerable and all too aware of it because he's a _Bat_.

Jason retreats to the kitchen and just stands there for a moment, not quite sure what to do. He doesn't have any food in the place, too damn busy keeping idiots in line to do much in the way of errands. He's been relying on take out and bar food, not the healthiest things around, no, but.

The water shuts off and Jason makes a face because he shouldn’t care, shouldn't be worried. That's Bruce's job, but if it's one thing he's proven over and over again it's that he's kind of shit at it. Dick's so much better at this, but if the Replacement's here instead of at the manor, then there's a reason for it even if Jason doesn't know what it is, exactly.

He should, by all rights, kick the little shit out of his apartment now that his good deed for the day's been taken care of, but.

“You allergic to anything?” Jason yells, pulling his phone out of his pocket. The apartment's small and its walls are thing enough that he knows Tim will be able to hear him.

There's a long moment of silence, Jason's thumb resting lightly over the dial button, and then the creak of floorboards and Tim's quiet, “No.”

Jason looks up to see Tim hovering in the doorway to the kitchen, towel around his neck. Jason's clothes are too big on him of course, the t-shirt hanging off him, its collar pulled off to the side just enough to reveal pale skin and the curve of his collar bone. The sweatpants are rolled up to keep the cuffs from dragging on the floor, Tim's bare feet poking out at the bottom.

“Thanks,” Tim says, looking everywhere but at him, hands clenched on the ends of the towel. “I'll just. He laughs, a bare huff of air and something like bitterness, resignation. “I'll get out of your hair.”

“Sit down,” Jason says, kicking one of the chairs around the table at him. “I'm not letting you out of here until you eat something.”

Tim catches the chair with a foot, and makes a face, like he's thinking of challenging Jason because he's a Bat and Jason isn't anymore, and that's the way it is. But all he says is, “Do you even _have_ food?”

The fact that it's a very valid question doesn't mean that Jason appreciates it, but it's nice to see Tim exhibiting signs of life.

“Shut up,” Jason snaps.

He hits the dial button on the phone and pointedly watches Tim while he orders pizza for them. Nothing fancy, sure as hell nothing healthy, but it's food and if the little princess doesn't like it he can go back to the manor and let Alfred spoil him.

********

Tim doesn't offer anything even close to resembling an explanation for his presence and Jason doesn't ask. What he does is grumble and mutter and snap at him when he catches Tim organizing his files or cleaning the apartment.

“Stop touching my stuff, or I'll shoot you.”

Tim just rolls his eyes at that, like he knows it's not an actual threat and hasn't been for a while now. “Your files are a mess, Jason. How do you even find anything?”

Jason bares his teeth. “Magic. Now leave my shit alone.”

Tim does. For about a day or so and then he's right back to _tidying_ , an actual feather duster in his hand and wearing the apron Jason had found stuffed in the back of one of the kitchen drawers when he got the place.

“Not a word,” Tim warns when he notices Jason.

Tim's hair is all over the place, dust and grime on his clothes and face. The apartment smells like pine - mountain fresh! - and Jason had no idea the kitchen sink faucets had any shine left.

It's still a tiny, crappy apartment, but now it's not so much shabby as. Lived in. A hard lived in, wallpaper peeling in half the rooms and fist-shaped holes in the other half. Some from Jason, some from previous tenants. The carpets are a grungy who the hell even knows what the original color was but sure as hell wasn't _this_. But now it's clean, like someone actually gives a shit.

Tim's still wearing Jason's clothes, and they're going to have to do something about that soon. It's like a little kid playing dress-up or wearing his older sibling's hand-me-downs, which. Okay, yes, but Jason needs his damn clothes back.

Jason doesn't say anything though, just tosses the bandana he got for Tim on a whim while he was out at him. “For your hair,” he says.

Tim's always fussing with it, blowing it out of his face or tying it back with pieces of string because he's too stubborn to go out and get hair ties. He feels like an idiot, though, when Tim stares at him, bandana clutched in one hand.

“Fuck, I don't know, burn it for all I care.”

Tim makes a face Jason's getting used to seeing, usually when he's being what Tim considers an idiot. “No!” Tim wrestles his face into line. “I. Thank you, Jason.”

There's a long moment of painfully awkward silence.

“Okay. Great,” Jason finally says while Tim fidgets, eyes darting around the apartment. “What the hell's for dinner?”

Tim can cook, and more than just food out of a box or can or a take away place, and it's. Nice, actually, eating something that didn't start out frozen, and Jason blames Alfred for that. The man's spoiled Jason for good food.

********

Because Tim doesn't offer explanations and Jason doesn't ask for them, he gets happy little surprises,. Things like Dick's boot to his face and the little demon brat's fist in his kidney and Jesus Christ, he hasn't even _done_ anything.

“Where's Tim?” Dick demands, ignoring the trickle of blood from the nose Jason did his best to break.

Demon brat's hanging back and so not happy about that because he's a murder-happy little bastard, and any other time Jason might actually appreciate that. It's been over a month since Tim showed up on Jason's fire escape, and Dick's asking about him now? Where was he all those weeks ago?

“Fuck if I know,” Jason says, which is mostly the truth. Tim's taken to coming and going when he wants lately. Like he's made his mind up, has some kind of plan in the works. “I'm not his keeper, Dick.”

No, just his roommate and how the hell did that ever happen?

“You're lying.”

And, see? That's not really detective work there because Jason isn't even trying to lie. “Oh, well done, Dick. You caught me out.”

Demon brat snarls, like a feral animal and Jason's had enough.

Dick's a vicious fucker when he wants to be, and the demon brat's not much better. Jason hurts, and for what? To make Dick feel better about being a dick?

“Maybe you should stop asking yourself where the Replacement is, and start asking why he'd leave,” Jason says.

He's perfectly aware of what a hypocrite that makes him, but it's not like Dick would know that, would he?

The look on Dick's face is priceless, like he really didn't think about it. Because he's Dick and sometimes can't see the fucking forest for the trees and just.

“Later, Goldie,” he says, and gets the hell out of there because this _fucking family_.

********

Tim's asleep on the couch when Jason gets in a few hours later. Jason just looks at him, and realizes how much better Tim looks from when he first showed up.

The dark circles under his eyes aren't as prominent, because face it, Tim's always going to push himself too hard. But now Jason's around to bully him into eating and sleeping on a regular basis. And the fact that he knows part of that was Dick's job? Doesn't sit well with him because Jason. Jason has a habit of fucking things up, and the last thing Tim needs is Jason making his life worse.

“Jason?” Tim opens his eyes, slow, easy, like he thinks he's safe with Jason. And that – it's fucking terrifying.

“I ran into Dick and the demon brat tonight,” Jason says, watching the way Tim tenses at that. Sitting up to put space between them.

“What - “ Tim's eyes narrow as he takes in Jason's face, gaze raking over him for other injuries. “Are you okay?”

Jason wraps his fingers around Tim's wrist when Tim reaches out for him, concerned, worried, and just looks at him. “Why are you here, Tim?” Because he didn't ask and didn't ask and _didn't ask_ , and maybe he should have. Maybe Tim needed him to.

Tim. He doesn't shut down, exactly, just goes into turtle mode. Protecting the soft parts of himself the best he can which is really damn impressive. Jason's expecting him to deflect, distract, but. He gives another one of those not-really-laughs.

“I didn't know where else to go,” he says, picking at a loose thread on one of the couch cushions. “This.” A tiny little smile, bitter at the edges. “It was a bad night, you know? Everything catching up to me and then there was this _kid_." Tim closes his eyes. “He'd gotten lost and he was fine, I got him home to his family, but I just. I needed to get away.”

Sometimes it's not the big things, the dramatic things, that fucks you up. It's the little things building up over time, waiting, until something like a lost kid happens and everything turns to shit because of this life they've chosen, or had chosen _for_ them. (You can't go back to who you used to before because you're not that person anymore, but fuck if you just lay down to die. You keep moving and go through whatever gets in your way.)

Jason tugs, pulling Tim into him and crushes him into a hug. He's terrible at them, either holding on too tight or not tightly enough, but from the way Tim's clinging to him he doesn't think that matters.

********

“The hell are you wearing?”

Tim looks down at himself, the flat black of his new suit, no Bat, no bird. He's wearing one of Jason's red dominos on his face, and a cape with tattered edges.

“My suit?”

Tim's been quiet since their little heart-to-heart, slipping in and out of the apartment at odd hours to bring back things like clothes and electronic equipment. He doesn't freeze up when Jason mentions the rest of their fucked up family, and Dick and the demon brat don't go out of their way to mess up his nights.

There's a fragile sort of truce going on, and he has the feeling Tim's the reason for it. Bruce's former Robin and Dick's little brother and now Jason's. Jason's _something_. Important to all of them for different reasons, and the little shit doesn't even realize how much.

“Who the hell are you even supposed to be?” Jason asks, because the way Tim's standing isn't Robin or Red Robin.

Tim smiles, hesitant. “Hoodlum?”

Jason just stares. “That's a fucking ridiculous name, baby bird.” Not like it's better than Red Robin, but still.

Tim scowls. “You don't have any room to talk, _Hood_.”

The sad thing is, none of them do, really. Take away the mythos that's been built up around any of them over the years and they're prime candidates for mockery. (Most of them are already.)

“I haven't decided on a name yet,” Tim admits, reluctant.

Jason feels the corner of his mouth tug up. “You missed it, didn't you.”

They're all fucked up, no doubting that. But once you get a taste of it, this life, you never really leave it.

Tim shrugs, settling his cape. Not Robin, no. Not Red Robin. Just Tim and the parts of him those roles left behind, blended together to make this unfinished whole, a work in progress.

Jason already knows Tim won't kill, even now too much of a Bat to do that.

Not that Jason would make him, when Jason ruins enough things as it is. But. It's not like he kills because he likes to, he does it because it's necessary. Someone has to do what Bruce and the others can't or won't, and it might as well be him.

Tim's mouth turns down, like he knows what Jason's thinking. “You don't have to kill,” he says.

Jason snorts, looks away. “Yeah, you just keep on thinking that, baby bird. See how far that gets you out there.”

********

Jason gets used to Tim going with him on patrol, and something. Jason doesn't like to kill, no, but sometimes it's necessary. He's told himself that over and over again because it was one of the only things that ever made sense to him. That sometimes there's no other way.

“Hood.”

There's a sniveling mess of a drug dealer in front of him, broken nose and fingers and _pitiful_. It would be a mercy to kill him, put him out of his misery, but.

There's Tim in his nameless suit watching him. There's Jason and the gun in his hand and the old familiar anger surging through him. There’s the thing about _this_ Tim.

The one that's standing there watching Jason. He doesn't kill, but he knows Jason does and he's still there night after night watching Jason's back. He'll say things like this, quiet, an unspoken, _you don't have to kill_ , and Jason.

He's still so full of anger some days. Sees fuckers like this guy dealing to kids, and all he wants to do is put a bullet in him. Keep him from hurting other people.

“He could be useful.”

And then Tim says something like that, and Jason. He's trying, for Tim. Because Jason ruins things, breaks them without even trying. (He's like Bruce in that, and it terrifies him.)

“You fucking deal with him, I need some air.”

Jason doesn't kill because he likes to, but because it's necessary. A warning to others, _this is what you get if you don't follow the fucking rules_. Not a stay at Blackgate before you're back out on the streets up to your old tricks, no.

Not with Red Hood.

You get a goddamned bullet in your skull if you’re lucky, and you better hope you are or he'll make it slow and painful for you.

He heads up to the roof and smiles, grim, when he hears the whimpering and whining pick up as Tim moves in for a little chat. He doesn't kill, but he's not like the others, not even Damian. (They never really knew what they had in Tim. Their loss, Jason's gain.)

Tim's making it so Jason doesn't have to kill quite so much. Putting the fear of Red Hood's nameless partner into them because he was a Bat longer than Jason was, and this is the thing they know best.

********

It's not really unexpected with Gotham and it's penchant for attracting all kinds of birds.

“Really?” Tim says, a look of distaste on his face.

“'Hoodlum',” Jason says, a reminder. Not an awful name in retrospect, but this? Blackbird? Somehow so much better.

Tim rolls his eyes. “They're not even trying.”

Well, no. But. It's Gotham and their main superhero goes by _Batman_.

“Shut up, Jason.”

Jason holds his hands up because hey, he didn't even say anything, okay?

“You had that look on your face,” Tim says, eying him.

He's wearing the stupid apron again, and that damn bandana Jason got him is tied around his head keeping his hair out of his face. They've been getting more and more disgustingly domestic lately.

Coming home after a long night of busting heads and intimidating criminals to bicker about who left the bathroom light on, or whose turn it is to take the trash out. Yelling reminders to add milk to the grocery list and don't forget to get laundry detergent.

Disgustingly domestic and not a little fucked up. ( _Them_.)

********

Tim alters the suit, the outline of a bird on his chest in red the same shade as the Bat on Jason's chest, two thin lines of color running down his arms to the tips of his fingers.

“Remind me to tell you about the time I went into the Unternet sometime,” Tim says, when he sees Jason looking.

The suit looks finished now, all the parts of Tim that were left by the wayside over the years gathered up and carefully stitched back together. It feels _right_ in a way Jason can't explain. Tim looks better than he has in a long time, and he seems happier. (Fucker certainly smiles more than Jason's ever seen him do.)

He's not Hoodlum, not Jason's. He's here _with_ Jason. At his side, watching his back and that's better. (For them both, probably.)

“You ready for this?”

Jason always asks that before they start their patrol for the night, and Tim always gives him the same response.

A smirk and a leap off the side of the building, arms spread out, Blackbird taking flight.


End file.
